


gold-lined promises

by Nitzer



Series: west coast [3]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: American AU, Birthday Party, Birthday Presents, Day At The Beach, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Secret Relationship?, awkward early relationship stuff, if i mention someone and you think they're an idol then they're an idol, whispers of homophobia but like barely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:29:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21516829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitzer/pseuds/Nitzer
Summary: that place between dreaming and wakefulness, between fantasy and reality, is always fleeting
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Series: west coast [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1406497
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	gold-lined promises

**Author's Note:**

> i said no more of this series but i lied! i just really never expected to come back to it lol  
> playlist for this one is: heartbeat by childish gambino, cut to the feeling by carly rae jepsen, blue moon by hyolyn, a world alone by lorde and untitled by sik-k and crucial star

Johnny’s old volleyball jacket becomes mine when his parents get home from their cruise. I never bring it back once I get home. It stops smelling ambiguously like Johnny’s parents’ house (but not really like Johnny himself) after a couple days, stops smelling like anything at all to me. I nearly rub holes into the cuffs of the sleeves, rolling it between my fingers and absent-mindedly catching it between my teeth. It’s not everything I ever imagined—it never was—but it’s still something with his name, big and bold, on the back. It’s like getting his letter jacket but who knows what that really means when he already has two diplomas and I’m not a high schooler either anymore. And I can’t wear his class ring either, it hangs loosely even on my thumb. So I have his old volleyball jacket.

He gives me a phone case for my birthday. I use it but I use the jacket more, it means more. The phone case hangs awkwardly between us—something he clearly got when I was just his brother’s best friend, just someone he grew up next to and he never got the chance to find anything else. It’s a milestone he didn’t expect to mean anything. Who knows if it even meant anything, neither of us have come around to saying anything concrete yet. It’s always been easier to touch, to offer favors and support instead of words. We’ve always been bad at talking when Jeno’s not there between us and he hasn’t been around much recently, not between us anyway.

Johnny’s profile looks good against the passing California coastline. The sun backlights him and brings out all the angles in his face, his expression focused and almost stern. He’s kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other firmly on my thigh the whole ride, playing with the rips in my shorts. He’s in a white t-shirt with a tacky button-up over it and khaki shorts. He kinda looks like the private school kids I used to play soccer against. When we plan this trip to the beach I think about wearing one of those cropped hoodies and some high-waisted short shorts like what Kyla always wears to bonfires. But I don’t have little booty shorts or crop tops so I end up in Johnny’s old hoodie and some ripped, jean shorts I bought myself after my birthday. Johnny stopped playing the radio when I was in the car with him and played some chill hip hop playlist instead. I’m getting kind of sick of Drake but haven’t worked up the courage to add something else in. I don’t know if I’m allowed to touch his phone yet.

I pick out Santa Monica as the destination on my birthday. I have a party with Jeno and Lucas and most of my swim team down at the beach. And it’s nice—Jeno and Lucas have always been natural lives of the party and someone brings Coronas and Kyla gets a little tipsy and makes me sit down for a full star chart reading—but Johnny doesn’t come. Neither of us can figure out if he’s _supposed_ to be there. Maybe he’s still just my best friend’s older brother after all, we never got the chance to negotiate it. He drops me and Jeno off, though and promises to pick us up. He’s already started his internship and it’s too late for him to be up but he does come back when the Corona dries up and the fire fizzles out. Jeno spends the ride home excitedly telling Johnny about how Lucas tried to skinnydip before we all had to remind him that the sun had been down for hours and this was the fucking Pacific, he was gonna make himself sick. Johnny laughs good-naturedly and drops him off with a smile but he looks worn and exhausted, adult in a new and miserable way.

He takes me home after, both of us sitting in tense silence. I want to ask him what changed between us, what this is now. Because I’d spent my entire adolescence trying to force words out of my mouth sitting in the passenger’s seat of his car. But even with the taste of his mouth fresh in my mind, I still don’t know what to say to him. He wished me a happy birthday when he dropped us off and Jeno spent the whole ride telling him about the party. There’s nothing left for us to say that isn’t incriminating. So we sit in silence, his hand resting high my thigh. My house is dark when we pull up to it, my brother’s still away at college and my parents are out. “Are your parents gone?” Johnny asks, his eyes dark under streetlights.

“Yeah,” I tell him. I celebrated with them a couple days ago because they knew they’d be gone. But I’m sure I look like a cartoon character—big sparkling eyes looking up at Johnny like he just offered me the world. I can’t seem to get rid of the doe eyes no matter how hard I try to look like I’m in control for once.

“Good, I have a better birthday present for you anyway.”

He holds my hand while I fumble with my keys and kisses me hard and deep the second the door is closed behind us. I’m not artwork in a museum anymore. I’m not something to worship. I’m something to _devour_. And I feel that suits me better anyway. I figure this is my present. I don’t know if Johnny knew about— _how_ he would know about—the fantasies that have plagued since I was old enough to have wet dreams. But this is it. He gives all of it to me. I’m not upholding my end of the fantasy this time. I’m not in some slinky dress, some too short skirt. I’m not even wearing his hoodie, I’m in the only BAPE shirt I own and my PE shorts from high school. I don’t expect Johnny to be there at all, I certainly don’t expect to have to tempt him.

He is gentle in all the quiet ways—his hand behind my head before he pushes me anywhere, his teeth never pressing hard enough to sting, his nails conveniently tucked away from my skin. But he’s rough in all the ways I wanted—growling, condescending, calling me pretty like it’s an insult, using our size difference to do whatever he wants to me. And I eat it up. We don’t even make it upstairs. I’m nearly crying and shaking (with nervousness, embarrassment, want, _need_ ) when he backs me onto the couch. I’m not drunk this time. I’m barely even tipsy, everyone else got to the Coronas before I did. And it’s real under my fingers this time. There is no pleasant fuzz to keep it a layer away from me.

I mean to maybe kiss him a little bit. Maybe sit in his lap. Maybe invite him to stay the night. But really I mean to ask him what this is. I mean to give us the space and time to finally negotiate this. Because all we’re really left with is a drunk make out on his childhood bed and few words. I think I said something like “I wanted to be your prom queen” or “you’re my teenage dream.” But that doesn’t mean much when we’ve both graduated. What are teenage dreams when neither of you are teenagers anymore? What does prom mean when you’ve already graduated? What will this be when I finally go to college in the fall? I mean to ask him everything and more in the privacy of my own home, where we can be whatever we are without any prying eyes on us. Instead he eats me out until I really cry on my parent’s couch and then holds me in his lap until I come down.

And then he’s sweet for real. All the way around. The same kind of easy kindness, care and gentle support he’d given me my entire life. He shushes me and wipes away my tears, tells me how beautiful I am. I’m relearning how to breathe, waiting for the dream to shatter at any moment. Eventually he strokes though my hair enough and I get my breathing under control. He gets me to shower and when I come out, still dazed and feeling like it was a dream, he’s still there on my bed. He smiles brightly when he sees me wrapped up in his hoodie, hair still damp. His eyes are exhausted and creased around the edges though. “Hey babydoll,” he greets.

“Thanks for staying up so late.” I tell him, picking at my comforter.

“I wanted to do something nice for your birthday.”

“Sorry you couldn’t go to the party.” But I guess he could’ve. It’s just easier to say that he couldn’t rather than he didn’t.

“I don’t know if I would’ve had any fun anyway.” He pulls me into my lap. “But do you wanna do something else? Go somewhere maybe?”

And that’s how I choose Santa Monica. I know I want to go to the beach. I’ve been missing the water ever since swim ended in the spring. I think about Malibu for a second. I think about making us go full circle. About coming back to the kid that was so deep in puppy love he almost drowned. But there’s no resort for us to go to. There’s no Jeno to sit between us. I’m not small enough to squish in the middle seat of the back row anymore. And the drive is too long probably with Johnny’s internship and all. (Also, and I don’t want to admit it, but _those_ kids and _that_ puppy love probably don’t exist anymore). So I choose Santa Monica instead. And Johnny happily agrees and kisses me good night.

It’s the full fantasy. Rough and demanding, cumming all over myself. And then he turns sweet, waiting until I come down and kissing me sweetly good night. He doesn’t stay the night, though. I’m supposed to ask him what this is. But I figured the promise of a trip is something. It might not be answer but it’s something.

“Have you ever been before?” Johnny asks while we’re walking towards the pier. We left the car in some parking garage and the LA sun is still high in the sky. I realize I don’t spend a lot of time with Johnny in the daytime. I haven’t since I graduated anyway.

“I went once for a school trip.” It was at the end of eighth grade. All I really remember is eating too many dippin dots and getting sick on one of the rides. I never bothered to go back, there was just too much else to do in LA.

He doesn’t hold my hand while we’re walking. I don’t know why but it’s something I always assumed he would do. To me, he was always the ultimate high school sweetheart—kind, charismatic, gentlemanly. I guess we both just missed the deadline for _high_ _school_ sweetheart though.

We get real ice cream from a shop that on occupies a tiny corner of a largely abandoned building under the pier. The have interesting flavors like blueberry-lavender and lychee sorbet and it _feels_ like LA (feels like all the parlors downtown) if a tourist was looking for that kind of authentic experience. The conversation between us is strained. But I guess it always is.

I still have Johnny’s number in my phone. It used to be for coordinating rides and momentous events—birthdays, Christmas, graduations. Now it’s largely empty. Sometimes I send him cute selfies if I find a nice filter. Johnny sends me short messages about people in his internship when something funny happens. The only thing I sent to him that meant anything was, _I miss the water_. I’m home alone and bored when I send it, feeling like I’m suffocating with how dry I am. But I don’t want to mention it to Jeno or any of my other friends, feels too petty and too boring. And with nowhere else to go, it goes to Johnny.

“Do you wanna ride any of the rides?” He asks me, standing under the tiny rollercoaster on the pier. He’s licking his raspberry-lemon ice cream off his lips. He doesn’t look like an untouchable dream. He just looks like the kind older brother figure that would do anything for me. I guess I never got around to reconciling the two.

“Nah, the last time I did I got sick.” I have a blackberry popsicle instead of ice cream this time and I would probably be fine. But I’d go to Six Flags if I wanted to go on any rides.

“It looks like they’re for little kids anyway.” It’s weird to hear that Johnny doesn’t think I’m a little kid. I might be eighteen now but I’m still significantly shorter than Johnny. I’m still even smaller than Jeno.

“So, you’re afraid you won’t fit?” I joke.

He smiles, still looking worn and tired but brighter. “I could try for you.” And I wonder if Johnny ever wanted a blushing doe or a confident minx out of me at all. I wonder if he just likes me because I make him happy.

There isn’t much going on down the strip of pier. There’s like three performers—two dancers and a magician—and that doesn’t leave much for me and Johnny to talk about when we sit down at the end over the ocean. “Do you wanna try my ice cream?” He asks me even though it’s mostly a melted puddle by now.

I can’t offer him anything in return because I finished the popsicle and tossed the stick a while ago. “Uh, sure.” I answer awkwardly.

He spoons out the last little solid lump and holds it out for me. I’m sure my cheeks burn bright red when I eat it from his hand. It’s the first intimate thing he’s done with me out in the sunlight. The first thing we’ve done that makes us look like anything more than estranged acquaintances.

I have my own older brother. And I have him for long before I know Johnny. There’s not really any opportunity for Johnny to slide into an “older brother” role. There’s not a lot of overlap between him and Yijeong and so Johnny becomes something else so easily. My mom tells us that Yijeong was excited for a little brother but I’m sure that wore off before I was old enough to remember it because he always kept his distance with me. He played me old CDs—Sleepy, Soul Company and Beenzino—and danced with me in our room until I had taken enough classes to get better than him. It was always measured distance and hand-me-downs (CDs, movies, books clothes, hobbies, anything he could realistically hand off to me) that I got from Yijeong. But Johnny never foists anything on me. He never asks me about volleyball when he graduates and stops playing it. And he is happy to occupy whatever space in my life I leave for him, always waiting with a kind smile and questions that prove he’s been paying attention to me. He’s not like an older brother, really. He’s just Johnny.

The beach below the pier is mostly empty. There are only a few clumps of scattered and confused-looking tourists. And I get why, the water doesn’t exactly look welcoming. I only make it to kicking off my shoes and wading in up to my ankles. Johnny watches from the sand.

“I thought you missed the water?” He asks, furrowing his brow.

I kick one of my feet out of the water weakly. I can barely see the little swirls of sand just below the surface. “It’s not…super nice here.”

He just laughs incredulously. “You picked here.”

I wade out of the shallow water dejectedly. “I thought it would be different.”

He sits down with me while I dry off and put my shoes back on. “Can I take you somewhere else then?” He asks cautiously. “Only if you want to, though.”

And it’s the kind and gentle, almost hands-off with how cautious he was with me Johnny that I had known my whole life. The same Johnny that would let his little brother’s best friend falls asleep on him the whole car ride to Malibu. The same one that always remembered my homeroom teachers. And I trust him. I’ve _always_ trusted him. “Yeah, okay.” I answer easily and he helps me up from the sand. And this time I keep our pinkies linked while we walk back to his car and he lets me.

“Play something you like.” Johnny tells me, gently tossing me his phone as he starts up the car.

“Uh, I don’t know your pass code.” I cough awkwardly.

His eyes widen in the rear view mirror. “I _never_ told you?”

"Oh my God," he groans, typing in his code and handing it back over to me. And he's so apologetic and flustered. He's touchable. He's real. He's everything I never dreamed up.

The conversation between us might kill the fantasy but it creates something else. Something just as good maybe. He tells me about his internship. His co-workers, the experience of really getting to work, how he's already gotten his internship extended an extra few months. How they seem to really like him. I tell him about the college I'm going to in the fall. How I chose it. How the campus looks. What I'm going to major in. How I'll miss Jeno and my swim team and even Lucas probably. 

I end up putting on the Beenzino album my brother gave me when I was younger. But it's just a background buzz to our conversation. I hardly even hear it. I don’t know how long it takes to get there, I’m not paying attention. But when we do stop it’s at the top of a hill. I feel like I can see the whole, glittering sea from here, dotted with a few surfers. There are no groups of confused tourists on the sand. It’s just sparkling water and the whole thing sits somewhere in-between fantasy and reality.

“Does this look better?” He asks, stepping out of the car.

“Yeah,” I managed, still in awe.

“So, you wanna go swimming?” He looks hopeful when he asks.

“I don’t have anything to swim in.” I explain, picking nervously at his sweatshirt. I’m not ready to dunk this into the ocean when he only gave it to me weeks ago and these shorts were expensive.

“I’m sure I have something for you.” He pops the trunk. “Jeno uses my car like a fucking closet.”

He’s right and we change quickly before walking down to the sand. It’s a quiet realization I have, walking with him. It’s a public affair I’ve always wanted from Johnny. Being his prom queen. Leaving graduation with him. Showing up to the function in the passenger’s seat of his car. I want to be shown off. I want to be his pretty little date for the Christmas party at his office. And it’s just not going to happen. Not anytime soon at least.

I can’t imagine telling my parents—I can’t even imagine telling my _brother_. I could tell Lucas or Kyla or Wendy if I wasn’t so afraid of it getting back to Jeno somehow. And the thought that Jeno could even _imagine_ what was happening here made me sick to my stomach. Plus I didn’t even really want to show off to my friends. It wasn’t the public affair I’d always imagined.

I wasn’t getting what I wanted. I just… _wasn’t_. And I told myself—hazy and drunk—that I was ready to try something real. And I did, in-between living all the fantasies I ever dreamed up. I just never let it stick around. I never committed to the real thing.

The water isn’t warm—it’s the Pacific after all—but it’s not bad. Once I dunk my head under water, my skin stops feeling so tight over my bones and itchy. I feel normal again. I think I was born to be in the water. Johnny splashes me and the sunshine glints in his eyes. I never think about having _fun_ with Johnny but here we are. And it’s kinda beautiful.

I go to splash him back and slip off the rock I’m balanced on. I never go under, though. Johnny’s got a grip on my waist and holds me tight against him. I blink up at him, fighting the glare of the sun to see. “Sorry, sorry,” he apologizes easily. “You’re a swimmer and all, I didn’t have to do this.”

“Yeah,” I answer, “but I like being here.”

He smiles down at me. “You’re sweet, huh?” But it doesn’t sound like a question I’m supposed to answer.

And this is the reality we’ve been obscuring the whole time. I can have something _real_. I can have something real pretty. I just have to really dismantle the fantasy first. Maybe I can start but just living in the moment.

“When do you start school?” Johnny asks, toweling off his hair sloppily.

“A couple weeks.” I answer, wiggling back into his sweatshirt.

“Are you living at the dorms?” He shakes the sand out of his clothes. “I know Jeno’s not even moving rooms in the house.” He laughs.

“Only during the week, probably. I think I’ll come home on the weekends.” The campus is only about an hour from home—not too far but not too close either. “Not really looking forward to it, though.”

“Why?” He asks, distracted by some seaweed stuck to his shoe. But then he looks at me, eyes wide. “Don’t say me.” He begs.

So I don’t say anything.

“ _Baby_ ,” he whines, “don’t say that! You’ll have a great time and I’ll be right here.”

I bury my face in the too-long sleeves of his sweatshirt. “And you’ll come visit me?” My voice is already quiet and half-muffled by the cloth.

He laughs and cups my face. “You never came to visit me.”

“Yeah, but I _couldn’t_.” I argue. “You can.”

He squishes my cheeks fondly. “Of course I’ll come visit.”

When we get into the car, he leans over the console and kisses me. His mouth is still slightly cold from being in the water so long but he doesn’t taste like milkshakes the way I always imagined. He tastes like the sea. And the promise to visit isn’t a declaration. It’s something I could just as easily get from Jeno. It’s not a concrete admission of anything. I still won’t know how to introduce him to my roommate when he does come to visit. It’s just a promise. But I’ll take it.

**Author's Note:**

> mark's brother is named yijeong just bc i like the name ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> ok but last one for reals this time  
> [tumblr](angelinmyheartt.tumblr.com) [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Nitzer)


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